Four equal stripes, red, white, green and yellow: the flag of La Rioja was born on the street before any politician approved it.
Every fact about the flag, each with what it means.
Normal flagFIAV symbol: the form of the flag.
CivilFIAV symbol: who may fly the flag.YesIt carries the coat of arms on the cloth.The flag in the words of vexillology and heraldry.
It is a rectangular field divided into four horizontal stripes of the same width.
Each element and how many of the 1,390 flags in the catalogue carry it. In yellow, the rarest.
Every date in its story, at a glance.
In 1977, the Provincial Council of Logroño wanted to give the province a flag and organised…
One of them, the one with four stripes, began to be seen on stickers, at village festivals…
By 1979 it was flying everywhere
Only the shade of the colours has been adjusted in the government’s image manuals, in 1985…
How it was born, how it has changed and what it means.
The flag of La Rioja has four horizontal stripes of the same width: red, white, green and yellow. The Riojans call it “the four-colour flag”. Its history is curious, because the politicians did not choose it: it became popular at festivals and demonstrations and was later made official.
In 1977, the Provincial Council of Logroño wanted to give the province a flag and organised a public consultation. It received 260 proposals and put five to a vote, but the process stalled over the arguments and there was never an official winner.
Meanwhile, a group of Rioja students in Madrid, the Colectivo Riojano, had commissioned designs using the colours of the coat of arms of the province. One of them, the one with four stripes, began to be seen on stickers, at village festivals and at the first Day of La Rioja, held in Nájera in 1978. By 1979 it was flying everywhere.
The popular pressure worked. On 14 August 1979 the Provincial Council approved it, and the Statute of Autonomy of 1982 made it the flag of the community.
The design has not changed since 1979. Only the shade of the colours has been adjusted in the government’s image manuals, in 1985 and in 2003. The version with the coat of arms in the centre is optional, including for official bodies.
The Statute does not explain the colours. What is known is where they came from:
Red, white, green and yellow
the colours of the coat of arms of the old province of Logroño, which were used to create the first proposals.
Red
on many flags of the first years it was painted in a wine-red tone, very Rioja.
In November 1977, during a week dedicated to La Rioja in Madrid, a flag painted by hand with spray paint was hoisted, with the same four colours, though placed in a different arrangement.
Before approving it, the Provincial Council asked the town councils: 115 voted in favour, 51 abstained and 8 voted against.
It was hoisted for the first time on the balcony of the Provincial Council on 15 September 1979, the feast of Our Lady of Valvanera, patron of La Rioja.
Test what you have read about the flag of La Rioja.
Text based on the article “Bandera de La Rioja (España)” from the Spanish Wikipedia, published under the licence CC BY-SA 4.0.
Sources consulted:
Flag image: jynus, Wikimedia Commons · Public domain.
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